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SVETTiGA aka PCHire.net have taken victory in the 2nd Invite-only cup ran by Team Dignitas.

Following our preview of today’s SCAN CS:GO Invitational we now bring you our post-event analysis and what we can expect to see from the UK CS teams in the near future in the run up to G3.

The first game of the event that was live streamed by Richard Lewis and HenryG was SVETTiGA vs Rasta.Gaming, with SVETTiGA (consisting of the majority of the former fm-eSports lineup) were the favourites going in.

Going into the first map SVETTiGA took the knife round and chose the slightly more favoured CT side, and got off to a good start taking the pistol round before Rasta could respond with their first buy round. The buy rounds proved very back-and-forth with Rasta proving they were not to be underestimated with their slow pick & push style. A tight round with Jonny & Cinder vs Weber almost went in the CT’s favor but Cinder was left in the perfect position to defend their plant as he picked up an easy kill on Weber in the 1v1 from connector to A site. Unfortunately the individual skill and aim proved greatly in favour of SVETTiGA as proven by puls3 on several occasions.

A 3v4 retake by SVETTiGA on the A bombsite in the 13th round knocked the confidence a little of Rasta but Cinder brought things back again in another 1v1 against puls3, hiding in his own smoke and picking up the kill as puls3 tried to defuse. In the final round of the half Rasta blasted into the A bombsite, playing a fast take strat for the first time and overwhelming an unprepared CT side and taking the half 9-6.

Switching sides things quickly got out of control for SVETTiGA as they picked up the 2nd pistol round and the buy round to take the lead in the game 10-9. An amazing clutch from puls3 in the 21st round and a 1v3 from Weber to take match point demolished any hope in the first map for Rasta and SVETTiGA took Mirage 16-11.

Going into map 2, Rasta managed to take the knife round and choose to start on the less favoured CT side, forming a 3-1-1 defence. Unfortunately SVETTiGA make the B play and the site is lost. Cinder tried to keep the hope alive almost winning a 1v3 but went down to Weber in the 1v1.

Following up on the pistol round, the T side take control of long and use the range advantage of the Galil vs the CT’s pistols and make the A plant, leaving Jonny in a hopeless 1v5 as he dies but not before picking up a kill.

Going into the first gun round the terrorists decide to hang on to their cheap rifles which was their downfall, as Rasta bring it back to 3-1. Unfortunately for them, SVETTiGA buy up AK’s and take the 2nd gun round making it 4-1.

Going into the 7th round Mitchen and Cinder combine on a mid-B push, taking 2 frags a piece and bringing the game to an acceptable 2-5 scoreline favouring the terrorists. The next rounds also go in favour of Rasta as a short push is locked down, followed by an eco mow-down and another buy-round victory. The game is tied up at 5-5.

Things quickly fell apart for Rasta though as they lose much of their momentum. Dudley faces mid for a little too long and gives the first pick of the 11th round to the T’s, and another mistake from Cinder at long gives SVETTiGA the A bombsite. Weber in a 1v1 at round 12 managed to push SVETTiGA further into the lead and eventually the half winners. Switching to the T side, the old fm-eSports players prove too hot to handle for Rasta as they take the map 16-8 and an overall score of 2-0 for this game.

In the other quarter-final’s Infused took an easy 2-0 victory over RAGEPLAY with 16-9 and 16-7 victories on Mirage and Inferno respectively.

4andahalfmen had a greater challenge, going all 3 maps and proving one of the more interesting match-ups of the 3 initial games against bananaboat as there was no sign of Dust2 OR Inferno, the teams opting to go for Cache, Nuke and Mirage instead. The first map being Cache went in favor of team bananaboat with a 16-10 scoreline, but 4andahalfmen ran away with Nuke winning 16-5 and then carrying their momentum into Mirage, taking a 16-10 victory of their own.

In the Semi-finals, tournament favourites Team Infused were knocked out in quite a big upset by 4andahalfmen. Team Infused were favourites going in and really had to show themselves as the UK flagship team in this event as they are representing the country alongside fm-eSports come G3. After taking the first map they just couldn’t find their rhythm and were walked over on Inferno (16-11) and Mirage (16-9), with dutch heroes MikeS and kajsk1ng going absolutely insane and carrying their team through to victory.

On the other side of the bracket, SVETTiGA who had just come off the back of a 2-0 win against Rasta, absolutely steamrolled their way through b3n’s boys in the first map but struggled majorly in the second, just barely clinching the win 16-14. The casters had a moment giving b3n’s boys hell, with CSS veteran ‘Sliggy’ taking most of the stick.

Moving on to the final we saw SVETTiGA take on the underdogs 4andahalfmen off the back of their victory against the favourites, Team Infused. The first map would be de_nuke, known as one of the most heavily CT favored maps in Counter-Strike. 4andahalfmen would win the knife round and choose to start on the CT side. Unfortunately for them, the PCHire team took the pistol victory after a well-executed 3/2 split on outside and ramp to take the lower bombsite, leaving only kajsk1ng in a 1v4. Barely failing the clutch, kajsk1ng chose to save in the 1v1 after some great pistol work in the last seconds of the round. Going into the anti-eco SVETTiGA took their rifles outside where they were met by kajsk1ng again as he takes 2 kills with the Five-seven from back steps, putting 4andahalfmen into a man advantage. After an exchange of frags on the upper site it all came down to kajsk1ng once more in a 1v1 against puls3, but kajsk1ng ofcourse was in the right place at the right time and took a clean kill on the last remaining terrorist before comfortably defusing the bomb and bringing the game back to 1-1.

Going into the third round some nice entries from jakem and vertiGo gave SVETTiGA the momentum shift they needed, but it wasn’t enough as a quick rotation from kajsk1ng combined with batham was able to quickly shut down a sprint for the lower site from the eco’ing terrorist side. The remainder of the half would be very back and forth with the PCHire team coming out 6-9 down but with a more than suitable cushion of rounds going into their own CT side. However, a well executed upper take after 30 seconds into the 2nd half pistol round paid dividends for 4andahalfmen as they took a T side pistol round victory of their own, converting this into 3 consecutive rounds unlike the failed anti-eco seen from SVETTiGA on the first half.

Opening picks from jakem on the upper site on the first gun round would result in a great exchange of frags between the two teams, ultimately resulting in the CT victory as jakem and weber combined for the last 2 kills as we see 7-12 favoring 4andahalfmen. The remainder of the half proved an incredibly one-sided affair as the CT’s crushed all attempts by 4andahalfmen, taking 10 rounds to 4 for the win on the first map.

Dust2 would prove equally exciting a map but it was 4andahalfmen who would come out on top to take us to a third map with a 16-13 victory after some great performances once again from the dutch heroes kajsk1ng and mikeS. Rounds were back and forth the entire game but it was the underdogs who managed to come out on top, meaning the deciding map would be de_inferno.

Inferno would prove to be a somewhat underwhelming final map as SVETTiGA would start on the favoured CT side and the underdogs seemed to be out of steam after winning their own CT pistol round and the Dutch connection were unable to carry their team to victory as seen on nuke and dust2 (they either both had or one of them had ~30 frags in both games). The PCHire team proved too hot to handle going into their terrorist half as almost every take of a site resulted in a successful round and they closed the game out at 16-9, winning themselves £500.